


Resurrection

by your_angle_of_music



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
Genre: Angel of Music, Gen, Manipulation, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:40:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28914753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/your_angle_of_music/pseuds/your_angle_of_music
Summary: A brief account of Christine Daae's first encounter with the Angel of Music.
Relationships: Christine Daaé & Erik | Phantom of the Opera
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	Resurrection

**Day 1 ******

Christine has no reason to be at the opera house this late in the evening. She has no reason, but she’s here all the same. The massive hallways seem to hold a bit of their old magic, when they are dark and still, and she doesn’t want to give it up just yet. 

She doesn’t mind that she’s alone. After all, she doesn’t really believe in the Opera Ghost that the dancers love to whisper about. 

She does miss the days when she believed in ghosts. And angels. 

And so, after meanderingly tidying up the dancers’ dressing rooms (and leaving sweets for the little ones), she sits on the most battered chair in her own, legs gathered against her chest. She turns her head to study herself in the great mirror — her pale cheek squashed against her knee, her wayward curls shadowing her eyes — looking, almost absently, for traces of her father. They are few and far between. He always told her that she had her mother’s blue eyes and blonde hair and heart-shaped face. But for Christine, motherless (by blood, at least) as long as she can remember, her features might as well have been a stranger’s. 

No, the only piece of her father left now is his small, sad smile: the one she’s wearing now. <

Suddenly, softly, she begins to sing. It’s a song she hasn’t heard since her childhood, a song that fills her mind with dancing firelight and her father’s violin and Raoul’s little hand clasped in hers. It’s _The Resurrection of Lazarus_. 

“ _Come and believe in me…_ ” 

As the words spill out of her, she thinks of the ghost stories that her father used to tell her, the ones that made her laugh and shiver in equal measure. She thinks of the thrill of hope inside each one, buried beneath the fear. 

She thinks of resurrection. 

And as she does, something in her voice, tear-rusted for so long, begins to shine again. She gets to her feet as she feels the music inside her like she did so long ago, burning bright as a newborn star, so that with every word she sings, pure light seems to pour from her lips. And Christine, radiant, rapturous, remembers why she loved — _loves_ — music. 

She is so consumed by her song, in fact, that it takes her several moments to notice the voice that is singing with her. 

She stops singing, and so does the voice, after a heartbeat. Just long enough for her to hear one deep, rich note of a harmony that is definitely not her own. 

“Hello?” she calls out, a little too softly. 

There is no reply. 

She shakes her head and sinks back into her chair. From the corner of her eye, she glimpses the tired girl in the mirror, the one far too old to be imagining things 

Christine has no reason to be at the opera house. 

She decides that it’s time to go home. 

****

******Day 2** ** **

he next day brings another late night at the opera house, and this time she fills it by practicing the prologue of _Roméo et Juliette_ , as she should. The words are rusty nails in her throat, heavy and dead in her mouth, the way they’ve always been since her father’s death. She sings them anyway, listlessly, lifelessly, again and again, almost as a punishment, because for one stupid, shining moment, she had dared to believe in fairy tales. 

And then she hears it. 

The same tenor voice that seems to come from nowhere, louder than the last time, louder than Christine sings now, and with all the beauty of a star-strewn sky. 

But Christine cannot match its beauty today, not when her old happiness feels so far away. She stops singing, and waits for the voice to stop too, to be reassured that she is a little bit mad after all. 

But this time, it keeps going. “ _Like a rosy ray gleaming in a stormy sky…_ ” 

Christine doesn’t stay to hear the rest. She seizes a pair of scissors from her bureau and bolts out the door. She glances around the hallway, looking for the stranger who must be playing tricks on her. 

It’s empty. 

The singing has stopped by now — in fact, she could have sworn it had grown fainter when she left her dressing room — but she has heard enough. With the help of a hairpin, she peers in every dressing room and every broom closet, clenching the scissors in her fist, but finds no one. Of course. She knows that she is alone here, that she was always alone here. 

She returns to her dressing room, to the chair in front of the mirror. 

“Who are you?” Christine asks, although she seems to speak to her own reflection. It’s the only face she can see. It doesn’t answer, though. It doesn’t even smile. 

If the voice intended to harm her, it already had every opportunity. If it took its pleasure in spying on her, she would have seen its prying eyes by now. 

If it were playing a joke, certainly it should not have contained so much unearthly sadness. 

She stands and turns towards the door, giving up again. But just before Christine touches the handle, she pauses and looks back over her shoulder. 

“You don’t have to be afraid of me, you know,” she says to the voice, whatever it might be. “I just think you’re beautiful. That’s all.” 

****

******Day 3** ** **

By the third evening, Christine no longer doubts her senses. When she walks into her dressing room, she walks lightly, with barely a rustle of her skirts, so that she will not scare the timid voice away. She is still unsure what she will say, even as she closes the door behind her. 

But it is the voice that breaks the silence. “Hello.” 

Christine gasps and stumbles backward, her back slamming against the doorframe, but she quickly regains her courage. “Hello,” she says, crushing the trembling out of her tone. “My name is Christine.” 

“Hello, Christine.” 

She doesn’t bother to inquire what or where it is. “I have never heard a voice like yours.” 

“Nor I, yours,” says the voice. “But why don’t you always sing like that?” 

“What?” 

“Two days ago, you sang like an angel. Yesterday, you sang like it pained you.” 

Christine’s voice comes out fiercer than she means it to. “It usually does.” 

“What made that night different?” 

“A resurrection,” she murmurs. Then she clears her throat. “Well, never mind that. To think that you’re asking all the questions, when it’s I who have just discovered a spirit!” 

“What would you like to know?” 

“How long have you been here?” 

“A long time.” 

“Do you sing often? In these rooms, I mean.” 

“No.” 

“Then why—” 

“As I said,” the voice cuts in, “I have never heard a voice like yours.” 

Christine flushes, just a little. Suddenly, she asks, “Are you very lonely?” 

The voice hesitates, for long enough that Christine almost convinces herself that it was never there. At last it says, very softly, “I don’t know.” 

“That’s all right,” says Christine, “I know that I am. So you may talk with me anytime you please. Or sing.” 

“I thank you, Christine.” 

“I shall be here tomorrow evening, then.” She stands and smooths her skirts. “In the meantime, I must be getting home soon. Maman— my patroness frets, you know, and she likes me to read to her a little before she goes to sleep.” 

“Very well.” 

Christine hovers by the door. “Oh, one thing more.” 

“What is it?” 

“I can see you don’t like to talk about yourself much. But I promise, you don’t need to worry. I won’t tell anyone here about you. They are already so silly about that Opera Ghost of theirs…” 

“You mustn’t believe in such things,” says the voice with a strange intensity. 

“Certainly not,” she replies. 

'Goodnight, Christine." 

“Goodnight…well, what shall I call you?” 

“You can call me a friend, for I can be the best friend you could ask for, if you allow me to be." 

Christine nods once — what else is there to do? — and steps out into the shadow-slivered hallway. 

Just before she closes the door behind her, she can hear her _friend_ singing softly. It is another passage from _Roméo et Juliette_ , this time from the Wedding Night Song. 

“ _To thee my destiny is bound forever…_ ” 

Despite herself, Christine shivers. Forever is a very long time. 

****

******Day 4** ** **

That evening, Christine enters the dressing room singing (albeit poorly) because it is easier than speaking. Because ever since her conversation with Madame Valerius last night, she has known what she needs to ask. 

“You came,” says the voice, cutting short her hollow, hummed rendition of Marguerite’s “Jewel Song.” 

“Of course.” Christine smiles, but lingers in the middle of the room, her hands fluttering at her sides. The voice seems not to notice. It has already picked up where she left off, rendering Faust himself ethereal in its sweet tenor. Christine closes her eyes, feels the music cling to her bones, feels the words bloom in her blood. Feels the icy pit of her stomach melt into raw and reckless hope. 

No, there is no doubt about it. This is surely the voice of an… 

“Angel?” she says, too sudden, too loud. “Is that you, my Angel of Music?” 

The voice falls silent. 

On instinct, Christine whirls around, her thin shoulders slicing through the too-empty air. More words tumble out of her in a rush, and the voice lets her speak. 

“My father — he’s dead. He died. Four years ago. He was very kind and very sad. He used to sing and play the violin and when he did, every living thing would stop to listen. It was impossible not to love music, then. And he told stories, too. The ones I loved best were about the Angel of Music. 

“No one has ever seen the Angel, but he speaks to the hearts of the chosen. He often comes when they least expect it, when they feel downcast and discouraged. Then their ears fill with celestial harmonies, a divine voice, which they remember all their lives. When I was a child, I asked him if he had ever known the Angel, and he said he had not, but that when he was in heaven, he would send the Angel down to me. 

“But when I lost my father, I lost my voice as well. By then I knew the true meaning of his story — or I thought I did — and resigned myself to living in a world that had lost its magic, and to continuing to sing, however artlessly and soullessly, and that’s what I have done ever since, until I sang like I used to for a fleeting moment and then I heard your voice, a voice that seemed to come from right beside me, a voice that was kind and strange and beautiful, and, oh God, I miss him, I miss _me_ , who I was, and—” 

“Yes.” 

The single word, uttered so softly, silences Christine. 

“Yes,” the voice says again. “I am your Angel of Music.” 

Christine lets go of her skirt (she had been twisting the fabric in her hands as she spoke) and walks to the chair in front of the mirror. She lowers herself into it slowly, as an old woman might. “You came for me.” 

“Yes.” 

“Papa…” 

“Your father loves you very much, Christine,” says the Angel of Music. “That’s why he sent me to you.” 

“When I least expected it. When I was downcast and discouraged.” She gives the words the intonation of a prayer. 

“I am here now. And I must ask something of you.” 

“Anything!” 

“I should like to give you singing lessons every day, in your dressing room.” 

Christine hesitates, for a moment. “You would do that for me?” 

Yes, for you have proven worthy of me.” The Angel’s voice swells with something new, something a little like a shipwrecking storm. “Whenever you sing, I shall hear you. Wherever you go, I shall follow. And all I require is that you swear to love me, and to love music, too, with everything in you.” 

“I swear it,” she replies. Breathless. 

“Good,” says the Angel of Music. 

Christine smiles fiercely as she gets to her feet. “I wish it were tomorrow already, but it’s only tonight, and I must go home.” 

“Yes, of course. Your patroness.” 

“My mother, really.” She makes her way across the room. “Thank you, Angel, for everything. More than words can express.” 

“It’s my pleasure,” he says, and then, “Oh, Christine?” 

Framed in the doorway, her eyes full of sky, her cheeks streaked with dawn, happy and whole and alive, for one moment longer, she stands there with the steadiness of a promise. Waiting. 

“These night meetings won’t do. Meet me here at seven o’clock tomorrow morning, please, for your lesson. We angels…we angels belong in the light.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't read any of the prequel books, so you'll have to tell me how this compares!  
> Thanks so much for reading :)


End file.
